I get the impression that I may be relatively more optimistic and less defeatist about the transfer portal's impact on Stanford football than many of our fans. My view has been the culture problems of inviting major roster churn every year will be detrimental to quality team-building (so a 4-5 year culture program like what Taylor is hopefully building could have an easier time navigating) and the economic incentives to focus NIL investments on transfers rather than recruits will make high school recruiting much easier for Stanford (because it will be so much less competitive). Consequently, while there are certainly challenges posed by the transfer portal, the effects point in all different directions (some good for Stanford, some bad, some neutral), making this more complicated than narratives that the sky is falling would suggest. And yet.....
I have been noticing all off-season that Pac-12 programs are dominating the transfer portal. My hypothesis for why this is the case has two prongs: I wonder if NIL payments are actually less decisive in driving transfer decisions than finding the highest level a player can compete, and I wonder if the Pac-12 is especially attractive for the kinds of players who avail themselves of the transfer portal precisely because the Pac-12 is the worst Power Five conference. Georgia, Alabama, and Ohio State don't need new players as they already have the best players (and Clemson has both great players and a culture-building coach not very interested in transfers), so programs like USC and Oregon become especially attractive for the superstars in search of a bigger stage and/or mercenary type players. Meanwhile, the vast majority of players in the transfer portal are in there because they think their next stop would offer a better opportunity for playing time. In other words, they're typically not good enough to compete in the top power conferences. The Pac-12 thus becomes the proverbial small(er, while still being Power Five, an enormous distinction) pond for the biggest transfer portal fish.
The data on the Pac-12's transfer portal dominance is really stark. I prefer to use the On3 rankings because they sensibly account for both incoming and outgoing transfers. After a 2022 transfer off-season in which the Pac-12 had three of the top 11 transfer winners (#2 USC, #6 UCLA, #11 Arizona), this 2023 transfer off-season the Pac-12 rankings are bonkers: #2 USC, #3 Colorado, #4 UCLA, #11 Arizona State, #13 Washington, #14 Oregon, and #24 Cal. Three of the top four transfer portal winners come from our conference, a tectonic event for our competitive landscape. The Pac-12 is less than 18 percent of the Power Five but 28 percent of the teams that are among the top 25 beneficiaries of this off-season's transfer portal.
Anyway, don't think I've seen this observed on this site and I just wanted to share as food for thought. For all my relative optimism about Stanford's ability to compete (not in 2023 but in future years), this is somewhat bracing. For what it's worth, the main conclusion I draw from this is Stanford has no choice but to bring it in high school recruiting. For most of our history a top 25 recruiting class was viewed as a success. In this landscape, in which a #25 recruiting class will in actuality be paired with a ______ transfer class (and my guess is that even if and when Taylor turns us around we're not going to be doing better than #40 or so transfer classes), I think Stanford needs to be a top 25 high school recruiting power, full stop. #25 should be a minimum bar, not an achievement. Not saying we should expect Taylor to do that with the 2024 class, but at least for me seeing how ripe the transfer portal is for the exact teams we have to compete with (Arizona State, Washington, Oregon, Cal) clarifies the stakes.
P.S. A related thought is that USC, UCLA, Oregon, and Washington as well as several lesser programs that draw from the western part of the country all leaning into the transfer portal in a way that distinguishes the Pac-12 compared to other Power Five conferences is an argument in support of the age old call by some Stanford fans for us to focus more on recruiting California. I’ve never liked that position, both because I truly believe our academic niche requires national recruiting and because I don’t think a California player is better than a Georgia or Texas player per se. But maybe circumstances have come around to a strategic reason to prioritize California recruits. USC and UCLA are largely ceding the space compared to how they’ve operated for, oh, a hundred years and simultaneously we’re seeing the non-SoCal schools lean in to the transfer portal (and by extension away from high school recruiting). Maybe it’s time for Stanford to become more of a preferred destination for California recruits.
I have been noticing all off-season that Pac-12 programs are dominating the transfer portal. My hypothesis for why this is the case has two prongs: I wonder if NIL payments are actually less decisive in driving transfer decisions than finding the highest level a player can compete, and I wonder if the Pac-12 is especially attractive for the kinds of players who avail themselves of the transfer portal precisely because the Pac-12 is the worst Power Five conference. Georgia, Alabama, and Ohio State don't need new players as they already have the best players (and Clemson has both great players and a culture-building coach not very interested in transfers), so programs like USC and Oregon become especially attractive for the superstars in search of a bigger stage and/or mercenary type players. Meanwhile, the vast majority of players in the transfer portal are in there because they think their next stop would offer a better opportunity for playing time. In other words, they're typically not good enough to compete in the top power conferences. The Pac-12 thus becomes the proverbial small(er, while still being Power Five, an enormous distinction) pond for the biggest transfer portal fish.
The data on the Pac-12's transfer portal dominance is really stark. I prefer to use the On3 rankings because they sensibly account for both incoming and outgoing transfers. After a 2022 transfer off-season in which the Pac-12 had three of the top 11 transfer winners (#2 USC, #6 UCLA, #11 Arizona), this 2023 transfer off-season the Pac-12 rankings are bonkers: #2 USC, #3 Colorado, #4 UCLA, #11 Arizona State, #13 Washington, #14 Oregon, and #24 Cal. Three of the top four transfer portal winners come from our conference, a tectonic event for our competitive landscape. The Pac-12 is less than 18 percent of the Power Five but 28 percent of the teams that are among the top 25 beneficiaries of this off-season's transfer portal.
Anyway, don't think I've seen this observed on this site and I just wanted to share as food for thought. For all my relative optimism about Stanford's ability to compete (not in 2023 but in future years), this is somewhat bracing. For what it's worth, the main conclusion I draw from this is Stanford has no choice but to bring it in high school recruiting. For most of our history a top 25 recruiting class was viewed as a success. In this landscape, in which a #25 recruiting class will in actuality be paired with a ______ transfer class (and my guess is that even if and when Taylor turns us around we're not going to be doing better than #40 or so transfer classes), I think Stanford needs to be a top 25 high school recruiting power, full stop. #25 should be a minimum bar, not an achievement. Not saying we should expect Taylor to do that with the 2024 class, but at least for me seeing how ripe the transfer portal is for the exact teams we have to compete with (Arizona State, Washington, Oregon, Cal) clarifies the stakes.
P.S. A related thought is that USC, UCLA, Oregon, and Washington as well as several lesser programs that draw from the western part of the country all leaning into the transfer portal in a way that distinguishes the Pac-12 compared to other Power Five conferences is an argument in support of the age old call by some Stanford fans for us to focus more on recruiting California. I’ve never liked that position, both because I truly believe our academic niche requires national recruiting and because I don’t think a California player is better than a Georgia or Texas player per se. But maybe circumstances have come around to a strategic reason to prioritize California recruits. USC and UCLA are largely ceding the space compared to how they’ve operated for, oh, a hundred years and simultaneously we’re seeing the non-SoCal schools lean in to the transfer portal (and by extension away from high school recruiting). Maybe it’s time for Stanford to become more of a preferred destination for California recruits.
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